Dunham v. Vaughan & Bushnell Mfg. Co.

Decision Date29 January 1969
Docket NumberNo. 41023,41023
Citation42 Ill.2d 339,247 N.E.2d 401
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
PartiesBenjamin E. DUNHAM, Appellee, v. VAUGHAN & BUSHNELL MFG. CO. et al., Appellants.

Earl S. Hodges, Springfield, and Green & Hoagland, Alton (Samuel C. Patton, Springfield, and Robert B. Maucker, Alton, of counsel), for appellants.

McGrady & Madden, Gillespie, for appellee.

SCHAEFER, Justice.

A jury in the circuit court of Macoupin County returned a verdict in the sum of $50,000 in favor of the plaintiff, Benjamin E. Dunham, and against the defendants, Vaughan & Bushnell Mfg. Co. and Belknap Hardware and Mfg. Co. Judgment was entered on the verdict and the Appellate Court for the Fourth Judicial District affirmed. (86 Ill.App.2d 315, 229 N.E.2d 684.) We allowed the defendants' petition for leave to appeal.

The injury that gave rise to this action occurred while the plaintiff was fitting a pin into a clevis to connect his tractor to a manure spreader. He had made the connection on one side, using a hammer to insert the pin. To insert the second pin he lay on his right side underneath the tractor and used the hammer extended about two and one-half feet above his head. The hammer moved through an arc which he described as about 8 inches. He testified that as he undertook to 'tap' the pin into the clevis a chip from the beveled edge of the hammer, known as the chamfer, broke off and struck him in the right eye. He lost the sight of that eye.

The hammer in question is a claw hammer of the best grade manufactured by the defendant Vaughan & Bushnell Mfg. Co. It bore the 'Blue-Grass' trademark of its distributor, the other defendant, Belknap Hardware and Manufacturing Co. The plaintiff had received the hammer from a retailer, Heyen Implement Company, located near his home. He received it as a replacement for another 'Blue-Grass' hammer, the handle of which had been broken. Before the accident occurred the plaintiff had used the hammer for approximately 11 months in connection with his farming and custom machine work. He had used it in repairing a corn crib and had also used it in working upon his farming implements and machinery.

Each party offered the testimony of an expert metallurgist. Neither expert found any flaws due to the forging of the hammer, or any metallurgical defects due to the process of manufacture. The experts agreed that the hammer was made of steel with a carbon content of '1080'. The plaintiff's expert testified that such a hammer was more likely to chip or shear than one made of steel with a lower carbon content of '1040', which would not be so hard. The defendant's expert disagreed; it was his opinion that a hammer made of harder steel, with the higher carbon content, would be less likely to chip or shear than one made of steel with a lower carbon content. Both experts testified that use of a hammer produced a condition described as 'work hardening' or 'metal failure', which made a hammer more likely to chip or shear.

The defendants apparently suggest that the plaintiff should not have used a claw hammer to tap the pin into the clevis, because the mushroom head of the pin was made of steel of a 'Rockwell' test hardness of C57, which was harder than the head of the hammer, which tested Rockwell C52. But as the appellate court pointed out, the specifications of the General Service Administration used by all Federal agencies, call for a Rockwell 'C' hardness of 50--60 in carpenter's claw hammers and a Rockwell 'C' hardness of 50--57 for machinist's ball-peen hammers. Those specifications also require that sample carpenter's claw hammers and sample ball-peen hammers be subjected to identical tests, by striking them against another hammer and against a steel bar, to determine their tendency to 'chip, crack or spall'. The specifications thus negate the defendant's suggestion that the plaintiff should have used a ball-peen hammer, rather than the hammer in question, in tapping the pin into the clevis.

The basic theory of the defendants in this court is that the requirements of strict liability, as announced in Suvada v. White Motor Co., 32 Ill.2d 612, 210 N.E.2d 182, were not established, because the testimony of the experts showed that the hammer contained no defect. Suvada required a plaintiff to prove that his injury resulted from a condition of the product which was unreasonably dangerous, and which existed at the time the product left the manufacturer's control. But the requirement that the defect must have existed when the product left the manufacturer's control does not mean that the defect must manifest itself at once. The defective 'aluminum brake linkage bracket,' with which the court was concerned in ruling upon the legal sufficiency...

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179 cases
  • Farmer v. International Harvester Co., 11670
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court of Idaho
    • August 26, 1976
    ......Bendix-Westinghouse Automotive Air Brake Co., supra; Dunham v. Vaughan & Bushnell Mfg. Co., 42 Ill.2d 339, 247 N.E.2d 401 (1969); ......
  • Ford Motor Co. v. Trejo
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Nevada
    • September 27, 2017
    ...... Id. at 413, 470 P.2d at 138 (quoting Dunham v. Vaughan & Bushnell Mfg. Co., 42 Ill.2d 339, 247 N.E.2d 401, 403 (1969) ......
  • Rodriguez v. Glock, Inc., 96 C 3981.
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 7th Circuit. United States District Court (Northern District of Illinois)
    • December 8, 1998
    ...... See Derrico v. Bungee Int'l Mfg. Co., 989 F.2d 247, 250 (7th Cir.1993); Suvada v. White Motor Co., 32 ... be expected in light of [its] nature and intended function." See Dunham v. Vaughan & Bushnell Mfg. Co., 42 Ill.2d 339, 342, 247 N.E.2d 401, 403 ......
  • Carrizales v. Rheem Mfg. Co., Inc.
    • United States
    • United States Appellate Court of Illinois
    • December 27, 1991
    ...sec. 402A (1977); Hunt v. Blasius (1978), 74 Ill.2d 203, 23 Ill.Dec. 574, 384 N.E.2d 368; Dunham v. Vaughan & Bushnell Mfg. Co. (1969), 42 Ill.2d 339, 247 N.E.2d 401; Lease v. Int'l Harvester Co. (1988), 174 Ill.App.3d 897, 124 Ill.Dec. 340, 529 N.E.2d [226 Ill.App.3d 37] A negligence theor......
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1 books & journal articles
  • Design defects.
    • United States
    • Missouri Law Review Vol. 73 No. 2, March - March 2008
    • March 22, 2008
    ...Ct. App. 1970); Rossignol v. Danbury Sch. of Aeronautics, Inc., 227 A.2d 418 (Conn. 1967); Dunham v. Vaughan & Bushnell Mfg. Co., 247 N.E.2d 401 (Ill. 1969); Vincer v. Esther Williams All-Aluminum Swimming Pool Co., 230 N.W.2d 794 (Wis. (39.) See 1 A. CORBIN, CORBIN ON CONTRACTS 2 (1993......

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